Saturday, 3 February 2007

trivia, trivia, triviorum, triviis, triviis

It's now only four sleeps until my Third Televised Game Show kicks into motion, and though I'm fairly confident on the capital of Mongolia, there are strong grounds for suspicion that an alien vivisector has removed from my head that portion of the brain which in most of us retains trivia about Angelina Jolie and Shane Warne.

Housemate Emmy sent me this quiz, courtesy of the National Nine News website (journalism at its most reputable). The quiz consists of ten exacting questions, designed to test one's powers of penetrative cultural analysis. For each question - i.e., "According to a massive online poll conducted this week, who is the world's number one fantasy girlfriend?" - the quiz offers us a choice of four possible answers. Given that my fantasy girlfriend is somewhere between Hildegard von Bingen, Katharine Hepburn and an otter - the possibilities of Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Beyonce Knowles, and Adriana Lima left me with no choice but to guess. The other nine questions placed me in similar predicaments, and it's a damning indictment on the laws of probability that I proceeded to score 5/10, rather than the 2.5/10 that I statistically deserved.

In order to redress this appalling lacuna in my general knowledge, I purchased myself a copy of the Nine Network's official cultural affairs periodical, New Weekly. Here is what I learnt: if you have the temerity to be photographed standing within two metres of a chap under a palm tree, you are clearly negotiating what is officially known as Revenge Romance, in order to show your scoundrel and blackgard of an ex-paramour what-for; if you are photographed failing to gaze adoringly at your spouse, your fingers are not laced into his buttonholes, or your head not glued to his armpit, then there is every likelihood that you will walk out on your children; if your paramour and your estranged spouse both wear baseball caps, then you are trapped in a pathologically recurrent psychodrama and there is considerable doubt over the paternity of your offspring; celebrities do not have surnames, or much to eat, or long and fulfilling relationships, but the good news is that if you buy the Elemis Liquid Radiance Cell Renewal System for $191.40 and a pair of Balenciag Platform Boots for $2163 you can be just like 'em.

On sport, the name of the Ashes poet-in-residence despatched with the English cricket team is David Fine. Do not read his poetry.

What is moving schmouse? Is it moving house, souse, and mouse, all rolled into one neat package? One thinks that it would be preferable to leave mouse and souse behind, (notwithstanding the reputation of the house-mouse or the house-souse concerned.)

About Me

Alexis, Baron von Harlot, is self-appointed Chronicler Laureate to the principality of Lalor, Victoria, Australia, including the lesser adjoining suburbs of Epping and Thomastown, and wherever she happens to be, really. These annals relay her keenly observed observations on matters floral, faunal, anthropological, protozoic, and thingy, with reference to the backyard, down the road, geopolitics, and the complete works of Jeanette Winterson.